“But I know you ought not worry about me. I want you to get well. I’ll tell you all about it when you are better.”
“No!” said the judge in his most judgely tone. “You will tell me now. I am your father’s friend, and I must know at once!”
“Oh, well, I guess it wasn’t anything to worry much about, but I did want to ask you if I did right. Cinda telephoned that Elaine had gone up in the attic and pulled out all my mother’s things, her private papers and everything, and when I got home I walked in the back door and overheard her talking with that lawyer. She had found Mother’s private diary, and she showed it to him. There were little items about the money she had earned and how she wanted to give some of it to Elaine and some to me, and they twisted it so it seemed as if she was referring to something Father had said to her about Elaine, about saving up and having money to send us both to college.”
The judge nodded.
“Yes, that was your father’s desire,” he said with a sigh.
“Well, the lawyer read the diary nearly through, and then he showed Elaine where she could write in words that would make the meaning entirely different. Elaine has always been clever at imitating writing and she agreed to do what he suggested, and then he went away. Cinda was in the dining room and overheard the whole thing, and I heard most of it. But they didn’t know that I was home yet, nor that Cinda was where she could hear them. They wouldn’t have thought she mattered anyway. But she was very bright. She told Elaine she needed to lie down and rest. She brought her lemonade, and took her into the bedroom and tucked her up. Then as she came out she picked up the diary, brought it out to me, and told me to go quick to the bank and put it into a safe-deposit box before my sister knew that I had come home. And so I did. Do you think it was wrong? I hurried across the fields and got to the bank just before it closed, and the book is safe in the bank now. Elaine doesn’t know where it is. Do you think that was a wrong thing to do, to let Cinda take that book, and for me to hide it and not tell Elaine?”
“Certainly not. You did just right. And now, this puts things in a little different light. What was Elaine’s reaction to the loss of the book?”
“Oh, she thought the children had taken it first, till she found out they hadn’t been home. They were across the street playing. She asked Cinda, but Cinda said she never took notice to anything belonging to her, so there was no more said. But when I came she tried to get me to call up her lawyer, and I declined to do it. I told her I didn’t like the way he talked to me and I didn’t want anything further to do with him, and then I walked away. Was that right?”
“Yes, that was right. Keep that up. Don’t let him get any chance to talk with you if you can help it. And now, if anything more happens and you need help, I wish you would go to my friend Mr. Gordon. He is a fine man and a keen lawyer, and I have told him about you. I felt it was necessary someone else should be wise about you. I spoke a few words to him on the phone again this morning, so he will understand. Now, I wish you would go right down to his office. Here is the address. I asked the nurse to write it, and this card with my name on it will admit you to his office right away without waiting a long time. I am talking rapidly because I think the nurse is coming back and she will drive you out. But I’m so glad to have had this talk with you. It’s relieved my mind a lot, and now I can rest better. I seemed to have a psychic warning that you were still in trouble.”
The nurse entered quietly and came smilingly to stand beside the bed.
“Now,” she said looking apologetically at Lexie.
“Yes, I’m going,” said Lexie, smiling and rising. “Good-bye, Judge Foster, and you’ve helped me a lot. I’m relieved to think you feel I did right.”
“Yes, you did perfectly right,” said the judge happily. “And now, will you go at once to Mr. Gordon’s office?”
“Yes,” said Lexie, “of course.”
“Well, please tell him everything, the whole story. He knew your father slightly, and I want him to get every detail you have. And if anything further occurs report it to him at once! That is, until I am back in my office. Gordon’s telephone number is on the card. You will find him most sympathetic and helpful. Now, good-bye, little girl. Come and see me again soon. And please call up occasionally. I might have a message for you about something, you know.”
“Oh, thank you,” said Lexie, a bright, pleased color in her cheeks. He was so pleasant, so fatherly, it almost brought the tears.
“I hope I haven’t tired him,” she said to the nurse as she got to the door.
“No, I think not,” said the nurse with a quick glance at her patient. “I believe he almost looks more rested. He worried a lot about you that first night. You seemed to be on his mind.”
So Lexie went on her way to Mr. Gordon’s office and found her talismanic card opened the way to him almost at once. He proved to be all that the judge had said he would be, a man of keen eyes, quick understanding, and a friendly smile. When she left, Lexie felt a great burden had been lifted from her shoulders. God had sent her an adviser to whom she could go! Oh, she would still go to God with it all first, and then if an earthly adviser was needed, here was Mr. Gordon who would if necessary talk it over with Judge Foster, and she wouldn’t have to bother Judge Foster with things that he didn’t need to know.
So Lexie went back to the house feeling that whatever had happened she was fortified to stand it.
Cinda was washing the kitchen floor, with a face like a thundercloud.
“Them childer,” she murmured as Lexie came in the back door, “they went out an’ jumped up an’ down in a puddle of black oil some old truck left in the road, an’ then they come in here to me nice white floor just scrubbed yesterday, an’ they walked all around makin’ what they called patterns on my floor, an’ crowin’ over it to beat the band. Even that oldest kid, that ‘Angel-child’ you call her, she was walkin’ around makin’ circles of her footprints, an’ runnin’ out to the road to get more oil on her shoes when it got dim. So I up an’ spanked her, good, an’ she screamed for her mother, an’ that neighbor-lady across the street come over to see was she hurt ur sompin’, an’ then they all howled so I spanked eh other two. I guess I spanked pretty hard, fer their mom she come out from her nap, an’ she was pretty mad an’ said I was to stop hurtin’ her childer, an’ then she fired me! Me! She had the nerve to fire me. An’ then I up an’ told her I wasn’t workin’ fer her, I was workin’ for her sister an’ I wasn’t fired till you fired me an’ fer her to git outta me kitchen, ur I’d swash some water over her feet. So she got, but she said when you come home she’d tell you ta fire me, an’ I might as well go git packed, fer it wouldn’t be many minutes ‘fore you’d come home an’ give me the gate. So, Miss Lexie, you better go right in there an’ git yer orders, an’ then I’ll know what ta do.”
“Oh!” said Lexie in dismay, and the “Oh!” with a little laugh at the end of her breath. “Well, Cinda, don’t you worry, I’m not giving you the gate. Not unless you feel you can’t stand it here any longer. I wouldn’t blame you, of course, but I’m sure I don’t know what I would do without you.”
“All right, me lamb, don’t you worry none. I’m workin’ fer you, an’ ef you still want me, here’s where I stay.”
“Oh, that’s good, Cinda!” said Lexie. “Now, tell me the rest. What else happened, and where are they all?”
“Well, Miss Elaine, she’s on her bed cryin’ her eyes out, an’ groanin’. Can’t ye hear her? The childer are acrost the street as usual. That Angel-child is probably tellin’ all that happened. Drat her! I could whale her good ef I got another chancet. But whut else happened? Well, that fat lawyer come back, and he had words with my lady. It seems she’d writ a whole lot more an’ signed yer mom’s name to it, an’ he said she’d got ta get you to okay it or somepin’, so it would carry more influence, an’ she tole him she couldn’t get you to do anythin’, an’ he said there was a way ta make ye. He ast her did you have a lawyer, an’ she said, ‘Oh n
o,’ you didn’t have any lawyer, an’ he said well in that case maybe she better go easy an’ coax. But he tuk her ole papers she’d been writin’ all mornin’ an’ said he’d see what he could make out with them. An’ he ast her wasn’t there some rich relative she could borry of ta pay the advance fee, an’ she cried a lot more an’ said everybody was against her an’ she didn’t know what she was goin’ ta do, so he just tuk her in his ole fat arms an’ hugged her, an’ kissed her three four times, an’ petted her like she was a baby, an’ said he’d do his best to get her the money somehow, an’ then he went away. An’ then those childer come over an’ worked that oil-act on my nice clean floor, an’ that’s how ‘tis. Now, I’m sorry fer you, but I guess you better go in an’ settle with her, an’ after you’re done if you really think you better fire me, why, I’ll go quietlike an’ not make you any trouble.”
“Oh, bless your heart, Cinda. No, I’m not going to fire you. I’m much more likely to fire myself. This certainly is an awful household, and I don’t wonder you’d like to leave, but please don’t, Cinda, for I just can’t go on without you.”
“Okay!” said Cinda with a crooked, triumphant grin. “I’m here fer the duration, so put that on yer pianna an’ play it. Run along now, an’ don’t lose yer nerve.”
So Lexie put aside her outer wraps in the dining room and went into the living room and over to the bookcase, where she selected three or four books, and sat down to run over some of the work she would likely be tested on at the new university.
But Lexie didn’t have long to study. She heard Elaine’s studied sobbing being audibly wound up, heard stirrings in the region of the bed, and then slippered footsteps, and the door opened.
Lexie sat very still, absorbed in her study until Elaine spoke: “Well, so you’ve finally got home at last! Where on earth have you been?”
“Oh,” said Lexie, looking up pleasantly, “why, I had a few errands to do. Did you want something?”
“I certainly do,” said Elaine. “I want you to go out in the kitchen and fire that outrageous, impudent woman you hired. She is simply insufferable! I can’t stay in the house with her another night! She is not fit to have around. I’m afraid to trust my babies near her. Do you know what she dared to do? She spanked my children! All three of them! Imagine a girl as old as Angelica being subjected to that! And the whole neighborhood was roused by their screaming! So, Lexie, I won’t stand another day of that insolent woman. I told her to go. I told her we didn’t want her here another hour, but she said you hired her, and she was working for you, and nobody but you could fire her. So now for pity’s sake go out there in the kitchen and fire her, and then you go downtown to the best agency there is and get a real servant. Offer good wages. You simply can’t get anybody worth her salt unless you promise to pay for it.”
Lexie looked up with mild, troubled eyes.
“I’m sorry you’ve had such a time, Elaine,” she said, “but perhaps you don’t know what the children did to make Cinda spank them.”
“Oh, she’s been blabbing to you, has she? I thought so. And of course you take her side. I might have known you would. You always go against me if there is any possible way to do so.”
“Listen, Elaine. Did you know that Cinda had just scrubbed the kitchen floor the last thing last night, and the children found a puddle of dirty black oil in the road and they all stepped in it and then came into the kitchen and walked around making patterns on the nice white floor? You don’t think that was right, do you?”
“Oh, the idea! A little trifling thing like that, and she gave them the most cruel chastisement I ever saw. She left the imprint of her ugly coarse hand on their tender little pink flesh. It was terrible. I had to anoint them with oil, and the poor little things were in agony! Simply agony! And I demand that that woman leave this house at once! I wouldn’t feel safe another day with her and my babies in the same house together! Now, go, and fire that creature, and then come back and I’ll tell you what I suggest we do next.”
Lexie looked at her sister steadily for a minute, took a deep breath as she had prayed she might remember to do when a time of stress arrived, and then answered quietly: “I’m sorry, Elaine, I can’t do what you ask. You see, Cinda is the only one we could possibly get without wages for the present, and neither you nor I have money to pay a trained servant. Besides, I told you I went carefully into that matter before I went away, and I could not find a single servant who was willing to come out to this suburb where this is so little bus and train service. I talked with several applicants at several agencies because you had insisted and because I did not know for certain that you might have some secret source of money that would change things. But I simply couldn’t find a single servant who would come out here. And I thought you felt you had to have somebody when I am away.”
“Away! You’re not still thinking of going away again, are you? I thought you had gone up to college to close that business all up.”
“Oh no, I didn’t close it up. I tried to arrange to take the rest of my work nearer by, and I may be able to do so, but even then I would have to be away a good deal, and you are not able to do the housework yet, are you?”
“Yet? Me do the housework? Well, I should say not! So! You thought you were going to be the scholar and I was to be the household drudge! Well, you’ve got another guess coming, and if you think that I’m going to fall for any such idea as this, you’re badly mistaken! You can go out there in the kitchen and fire that vampire and then come back and I’ll tell you what to do next.”
Lexie took another deep breath and looked at her sister steadily.
“Elaine,” she said, “I’m neither expecting to be a scholar nor have you slave for me. I’m just trying to get my diploma because in these days one is not sure of any job that’s worth anything unless they have finished college. So, as there are only three months of hard work now to finish my college course, I am going to stick to it and do the best I can. And to that end, I intend to keep Cinda here. I haven’t any money to pay a maid or a nurse, and we shall have to get along with Cinda even if you don’t like her. That is, unless you can lay down enough money to cover the weekly wages of a better maid. Even then you’d have to find the maid, for I’ve exhausted my resources in that line.”
“The idea!” snorted Elaine. “What have you done with all that money of mine? That’s what I want to know. Somewhere you have it stored away, and now you are trying to get money out of me to run this house, and you’re not going to get it! Do you hear? You’re not going to get a cent more out of me for anything.”
Lexie drew a weary breath.
“I’m sorry, Elaine, that you have such a mistaken notion. I can’t think where you got it. But you evidently think it is true. And it isn’t! Really it isn’t. I have only a very little money that I have earned in hard work, saved to get myself a graduating dress because I didn’t think it was fair to the other girls in the class for me to go on the platform in a dark dress when they were all in white. I didn’t have a single thin dress left that wasn’t simply in rags.”
“Oh, really! What earthly difference would that have made? You probably would never see any of those girls again, and they would never hear of you. I declare, Lexie, you seem to have gotten very worldly. I’m sure your mother would never have approved of that. But whatever you have become, I really don’t credit that story of yours about having no money except enough to get a simple white dress. So you might as well understand it, and it is time that you came across with some of the money that belongs to me. You said you had fifty dollars that Mamma left you and that you would give it to me, but I haven’t seen it yet. Suppose you go and get it for me now. I need a new dress myself, and I want to go to a beauty parlor and have a facial and a shampoo and a permanent. I am ashamed to meet my lawyer looking like this.”
“I’m sorry, Elaine, but I’ve spent every cent of that fifty dollars on you and your children since you came, to get food for you all to eat, and I haven’t any more to spar
e. And now you’ll have to excuse me. I don’t want to continue this discussion. It only brings hate in our hearts, and it isn’t good for the children to hear bickering all the time. They are coming in now.”
“Oh yes, you are very clever to get up excuses to change the subject, but you’ll soon find out that it would have been much better for you if you had come through and told the truth, because if you go on like this you’ll not only lose every cent of the money yourself, but you’ll find yourself sadly in debt for interest on all that money. You see, my righteous little sister, I have definite proof now. We know pretty well just where you have parked that money, and are going to have no trouble in getting possession of it.”
“Yes?” Lexie asked, lifting her eyebrows. “Just what evidence could you possibly find of something that doesn’t exist and never has?”
“Says you! Well, my dear little sister, I have evidence in your own mother’s handwriting stating the whole thing, when and how she took possession of the money, and what she did with it. But of course you know all about that.”
“No,” said Lexie steadily, “I do not know anything about any such thing, and I don’t believe you do either. I’m sorry to speak this way to you, but I know what I am talking about, and I’m quite sure if you keep on in this way I shall have to take steps that will make you know also just what you are doing. You know I am not entirely without friends, even though I haven’t much money. If you persist in acting this way to me I shall be obliged to appeal to them to put an end to it. Certainly I’m not going to stay here and run this house for your benefit, and feed you and take care of your children when there is need, if you are going to persist in being unfriendly. I would rather go away by myself than to live in continual bickering. I’m willing to forget what you have said without formal apologies, and to try to forget what you have said about my mother, who was as kind and good to you as she was to me, her own child, if you will try to be decent to me. But to stay here and take insults like this is unbearable.”